[WoW] WotLK - Beta Patch Notes

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

...

Targeting is and has never really been the problem. Even with complex smart targeting systems you still need to watch to see if/when people are hurt. Granted you could probably just spam heals all day.

Honestly I think the next evolution will be making healing part of the environment. Lightwell is one very obvious solution. I think it's a brilliant heal and something that should be expanded upon. It requires the priest to have knowledge of the fight, know where to place the well and it's up to the dps to determine when/if they need the heals and to go get it while maintaining their damage rotation.

Lolwell in it's initial form was useless. This new form has potential and I find quite entertaining. It's exactly what a heal should be.

Likewise I think future heals will focus more on shaping the battlefield and targeting the mob. Allow me to drop a force field our casters can hide behind that reduces AE damage they take by 50%, allow me to cast a ward on the mob that reduces HIS damage by 20% rather then heal the tank. Judgement of Light is now an awesome heal. PoM is a fire and forget heal, it's great.

Stuff like that.

Changing targeting/macro's won't ultimately do anything. Making healing more about preventing the mob from doing damage in the first place? Tha'ts the future.

[Scorp]

Originally Posted by Pyros

Do you mean PvP racials? Cause like, UD racials are pretty shitty for everything but PvP, for which they're only decent at best.

UD:
1% shadow miss, which is lower than everyone else, most being 2% and NE being 3%
Cannibalize which still sucks for pretty much everything but world pvp
Underwater Breathing which was ok in vanilla wow for leveling, but totally worthless now that they boosted everyone breathing to 3mins, and that every underwater quest in wotlk provides a 10-30mins self buff item to do the quest with
WoTF, which is pretty nice for pvp, and that's about it, and even then it was nerfed since it doesn't provide immunity anymore

Tauren:
2% nature, which is pretty fucking worthless but 1% more than UD
War Stomp which is barely useful in pve, but pretty interesting for a DK in PvP since your only other stun is ghoul stun, meaning it doesn't hurt other abilities you have like some other classes, and add a new interupt to your arsenal
5% hp, which while it was nerfed to provide a static value now, is still around 500hps at 80, which is pretty decent, both for pve and pvp
Last is herb I think, worthless shit

Overall, the tauren beats the undead easily for most stuff unless you value wotf very high, which you shouldn't with every priests having fear ward, lichborne giving a fear immunity for a long time and being a must for both pve and pvp anyway.

All that said, I'm still playing an undead. I hate taurens. They're both pretty bad choices for a DK when you compare them to Orcs anyway. Even Blood Elves are arguably better with the added silence. And trolls... well I guess they're ok, the snare reduction would be pretty sick for pvp since it stacks with toughness.

Hm.. probably going to go with Tauren then. Still not positive, but Tauren do look better when put that way. I was thinking BE aswell, but I'm not really sure about those over Tauren.

Another thing. What are people using their badges for now that WOTLK is coming out in 2 weeks? I plan on switching mains, and wanna know what to blow these badges on for the new DK.

[Genjiro]

Blood elf racial is $$ for dks.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Yea, new arcane torrent is pretty much tits. Definitely worth having the fewest racials.

[Scorp]

Color me stupid, but how is a 2 second silence + 15 RP better than Tauren stun?

[Surlok TP]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

No argument that those mods did a lot, or that what they were capable of doing went way beyond what the developers were comfortable with, but with those mods healers could actually pay attention to something other than the UI for the vast majority of their gameplay. There was a lot of goodness that went away along with fixing the perceived "badness."

It'd be interesting to see what would happen if they removed certain of the Secure UI changes that went in with 2.0, built in the good parts of what some of the older mods could do, and freed up the healers to play the game, not the UI.

I mean, I realize that healers only look specifically at health bars, but basically every class now save maybe a tank, spends it's time staring at the UI over the majority of a fight. As a Rogue I have my health bar, next to the mobs health bar, above my abilities and my energy ticker, beside my threat meter.

I didn't really think about that much till I read what you quoted, I stare at about a 3 inch wide by 2 inch high portion of my screen and rarely deviate from that perspective once the fight ensues save for a few random encounters that have me moving around and such. Even in PVP where I am not on some cliff or something, I shift from that view only for quick glances to see if other folks are inc.

I almost feel like I am playing a sniper in these games, where I am scoped staring at one spot, but even then in FPS games, while I may focus on a specific area that gets a ton of travel, I still spend a great deal of time looking around.

As the years go by and my monitors have gotten larger, the amount of screen space I use has been getting drastically smaller, I am for all intents and purposes lately, playing a very basic graphical mud at least in terms of my wow playing. Other MMO's feel a little bit more loose to me in terms of how attentive I have to be with my abilities , assuming I don't want to rely to much on various mods.

[Genjiro]

Originally Posted by Scorp

Color me stupid, but how is a 2 second silence + 15 RP better than Tauren stun?

Because you can AT + chains of ice or something (for more ap during the silence) which can give you emergency RP to then follow up with a Mind Freeze on a healer/caster and completely rape them, unless you happen to be spec'd pretty deep in frost for pvp and free mind freezes (which is pretty shitty comparatively because of how good unholy/blood is).

[Chaotic]

Can anyone give a similar breakdown of orc /be / troll as relates to a death knight? I don't know the new racials and am strugglign with this decision now too.

All of my characters have been orcs as they are pretty much rape for pvp now I understand it's not so simple and they nerfed the stun resist pretty hard iirc.

[Pyros]

Orcs racials:
5expertise with axes. Useful both for PvP and PvE, very potent buff
Blood fury: Mostly a PvE DPS ability because of the self MS, but if you're in a no healing 2s team for arenas for example, it can be useful to burst the shit out of someone.
Stun duration decreased by 15%: Not as RNG based as before, but still pretty useful for both pvp and pve
Pet damage +5%: Works on ghouls, useful for both pve and pvp again

Orcs are very well rounded, and while they don't have a killer ability, they have very good passive bonus and their active ability is extremly good for pve dpsing.

BE:
Jewelcrafting thingie: worthless
Magic resistance, 2% for spells to miss you, very powerful since it affects all spells, as well as abilities considered spells(such as shouts and stuff like that)
New arcane torrent: Instant, off the GCD, generates 15RP instantly and silence everything around for 2s. The best part of it is the fact it's pure instant, so you can use it when it's the most needed, contrary to warstomp which has a casttime and can be delayed. The instant 15RP can also be very useful if you need to turn on something reactively, like icebound fortitude or antimagic shell when you're frost novaed and the mage is setting up a huge chain on your ass and you don't have anything up. Silences stack extremly well for pvp, the more you have, the longer you can lock someone forcing either an early trinket, or simply landing a kill. Close to worthless for PvE.

BEs are very good for PvP, especially arenas and especially against caster teams(or teams with healers, so not so good for 2vs2 I guess where quite a few teams go double DPS). Not very good for PvE.

Troll:
Health regen: pretty useless, but still a passive small "heal"
Bow mastery thingie: worthless for a DK
Berzerking: Good DPS increase, potent for PvP where you can easily use it when under 50% hp due to burst damage in pvp, and good for tanking threat. Decent for pve DPS. A good buff all around, they removed the initial cost on it making it a pure bonus(when before it was worthless unless you could activate it at full power)
Voodoo Shuffle: Reduce all movement impairing effects duration by 15%. Stacks with Toughness for 65% total, which is VERY useful for the DK which biggest weakness is snares/roots(and disease dispels). Worthless in pve however, totally a pvp skill.

Decent PvP bonus, and good PvE bonus. If you can get past the looks, a pretty nice choice for a character nowadays.

For PvP, I'd say BEs are probably the best choice. For PvE tanking, tauren or orc. For PvE DPS, Orc. That's my opinion however. Overall, I'd say the racials have never been this balanced before. While Orc is the very best for pve dps due to everything being useful, every other race is viable for pretty much every role. It's, now more than ever, a matter of esthetics. I know I can't play most of the horde races without model editing my char.

P.S.: Before someone asks alliance, best pvp race is gnome, best pve tanking is night elf, and best pve dpsing is human. Check Misc - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information for specific changes, everything not listed there is still the same, they only list changes/new racials.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Pyros

P.S.: Before someone asks alliance, best pvp race is gnome, best pve tanking is night elf, and best pve dpsing is human. Check Misc - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information for specific changes, everything not listed there is still the same, they only list changes/new racials.

Best PvP race seems to be human to me, that free trinket slot is going to be very useful.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Best PvP race seems to be human to me, that free trinket slot is going to be very useful.

That's highly arguable. While a good racial indeed, gnome escape artist is insane for DKs because their main weakness, as I've stated before, are snares/roots(and dispels but nothing can be done racial wise about that). But yeah, human is a pretty good pvp choice too, perception while nerfed is still a plus, expertise is nice and the free trinket isn't too bad, but you'll probably trade some of the additional stats for the resilience you lose on your pvp trinket. I was just over simplifying, pvp is much too complex to really come up with one best in all situations race, it all depends on pvp type(bgs or arenas), bracket, partners and opponents. You can however easily say Night Elves are the best tanks due to 2% melee/ranged miss which is fucking insane for a tank, and pve dps humans should be winning due to expertise, but I guess dwarves aren't bad too for the same reason.

[Smellson]

Originally Posted by Pyros

That's highly arguable. While a good racial indeed, gnome escape artist is insane for DKs because their main weakness, as I've stated before, are snares/roots(and dispels but nothing can be done racial wise about that). But yeah, human is a pretty good pvp choice too, perception while nerfed is still a plus, expertise is nice and the free trinket isn't too bad, but you'll probably trade some of the additional stats for the resilience you lose on your pvp trinket. I was just over simplifying, pvp is much too complex to really come up with one best in all situations race, it all depends on pvp type(bgs or arenas), bracket, partners and opponents. You can however easily say Night Elves are the best tanks due to 2% melee/ranged miss which is fucking insane for a tank, and pve dps humans should be winning due to expertise, but I guess dwarves aren't bad too for the same reason.

I very much look forward to stoneforming my way through rogues/other dk's/feral snares and bleeds, keke.

[Sharmai]

Fuck that. I would trade all of the horde racials for + 10% to faction rep

[Scorp]

Thanks Pyros.

Probably going to be a BE DK, unless for some reason I feel Tauren is more aesthetically pleasing.

[Rusty Dagger]

Originally Posted by Scorp

Can't decide between Tauren and UD for my new Deathknight. UD look crappy in plate, but I like the racials and what not. Tauren look better in plate, and racials aren't as good.

Hard to decide. Any input?

It's kind of already been answered but since I'm late to the party, for both pve and pvp orc is pretty much going to be your best bet. Stuns are becoming more frequent now and IMO % reduction >> % resist. Reducing deep freeze/cheap shot/hoj by a full second is invaluable for pvp and I think blood fury is the best dps racial for pve. For pvp and pve horde side I'd go, in order of preference:

PvP:
#1. Orc
#2. Troll (voodoo shuffle owns as snares are your biggest weakness)
#3. Undead (you get a wotf talent and you have a trinket but it never hurts to have #3)
#4. BE (I personally never liked a silence with nearly as much a global cooldown as the effect itself but it is situationaly useful)
#5. Tauren (War stomp requires you to stop moving and the 5% base hp is very lackluster)

PvE:
#1. Orc
#2. Troll (berserking is the only other horde dps racial)
#3. BE (minor RP regen > nothing)
#4. Tauren (minor RP regen > minor health boost > nothing)
#5. Undead (basically no useful pve racial unless a raid boss is underwater and dispels breathing buffs)

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Best PvP race seems to be human to me, that free trinket slot is going to be very useful.

Don't want to start a whole tangent on this but the racial is absolute garbage. It's going to be very hard to cap resilience in season 5 and probably season 6 and there's really no foreseeable reason why you would want to give up the I think 88 resilience from a pvp trinket anyway. You're going to see most arena competitive humans (even dps classes) using the new pvp trinket anyway. For this racial to have any sort of purpose it needs to have some minor improved functionality to the pvp trinket. IMO either a 1:45 cooldown or some reason way to unlink the cooldown to pvp trinket would make it useful. Currently it is not.